From Instagram: pkwanpiOf course there’s a #newtcrossing — this is #berkeley after all! In Tilden Regional Park

Oakland side of San Francisco Bay has a stunning string of parks from the water’s edge, following abandoned rail lines, through parks in the city, wending and winding up into the mountains into real wilderness. It’s impressive, decades later, to remember the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors touring these sites as they were being redeveloped from abandoned industrial sites, real brownfield recovery — and see what a grand complex it is now.

And there, one may find a newt crossing one’s path. Watch out for the newts!

Utah’s wildlife managers were plugging the deadline to apply for permits to take an elk in the wild, and they added this picture:

Utah elk in the sagebrush, with mountains in the background. Photo from Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, “courtesy Jim Shuler.”

Don’t know the location, but I’m guessing south of Provo, since the mountains in the back look a little redder than they would be just from afternoon sunlight (anyone know?).

In my original home town, Burley, Idaho, we got Challenge Dairy products. For reasons I don’t remember or know, my mother bought Challenge butter over others, from a large display in the small Sparr’s Grocery (did I get the name right? Still there?) . I liked their stuff because they had the coolest logo. I regretted losing access to that stuff when we moved to Utah.

Butter box from Challenge Dairy showing the full logo for the company.

That photo above reminded me of the Challenge logo.

Surprised to discover Challenge Dairy is a California co-op, and not an Idaho concern.

Today we get Challenge Butter in our local Tom Thumb supermarkets in North Texas — but Tom Thumb was bought by Safeway, which was bought by Albertson’s, both of whom have deep history in the west.

Deadline for Utah elk permits was March 2, by the way. Probably about the same time next year, for 2018, if you’re looking to hunt.

Most serious birdwatchers can tell you about global warming and climate change, just from watching the birds at their feeders, and when those birds migrate.

Now comes a study to confirm with data and controlled observation what the birders have been saying all along. Phys.org reported:

Scientists have shown for the first time that common bird populations are responding to climate change in a similar pronounced way in both Europe and the USA.

An international team of researchers led by Durham University, UK, found that populations of bird species expected to do well due to climate change had substantially outperformed those expected to do badly over a 30 year period from 1980 to 2010.

The research, conducted in collaboration with the RSPB and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), is published in the journal Science.

It is the first real demonstration that climate is having a similar, large-scale influence on the abundance of common birds in widely separated parts of the world, the researchers said.

Among the species showing pronounced effects of climate change are common woodland and garden birds such as the wren, in Europe, and the American robin in the USA.

Biologists especially work to predict effects of warming on plants and animals, both to help plan changes in activities such as farming and hunting, and to protect species that are endangered now, or are likely to become so due to changing climate factors.

This study shows scientists can predict with accuracy some of the wildlife effects.

These changes are consistent with changing climate suitability within those areas, the researchers said.

Other factors, such as the size of the birds, the habitats they live in and their migratory behaviour, all affect bird populations, but did not differ systematically between groups advantaged or disadvantaged by climate change.

Therefore, only climate change could explain the differences between average population trends in advantaged and disadvantaged groups, the researchers said.

The study’s lead authors, Dr Stephen Willis and Dr Philip Stephens, of Durham University’s School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, said the findings showed there was a large-scale, consistent response by bird populations to climate change on two continents.

One of our local pharmacists travels on vacations, and takes photos. Pharmacies being what they are, people wait in line with nothing to do but count ticks on the clock. No one takes a book to the pharmacy to wait.

But the guy, Mark de Zeeuw, has a good sense of customer service. He got one of those photo frames that had a video display to show photos. Over time, it morphed to an extra computer screen, and probably an old computer (don’t know for sure).

At the Tom Thumb supermarket in Duncanville, Texas, customers get to see photos of the pharmacist’s travels. A lover of travel and photography, and a too-frequent customer at the pharmacy, I think I may have seen every photo on that harddrive. Many of them are very good. He travels to Alaska and across the American west, and he’s got at least one telephoto that works well on wildlife — this I know from watching the photos. I’ve never discussed it with the guy (who is always busy working on prescriptions, or fighting with insurance companies over the phone; Tom Thumb’s being a large company, there may be other pharmacists on duty at the time).

Okay, I’m shy. I’ve wanted to ask him for copies of several of the photos to share, one in particular. It’s a nice shot of the yellow warning/information signs you see at the side of a highway. With a bright blue sky in back, and obviously a lot of unpopulated territory, it says “Eagles On Highway.” I broke the shyness enough to learn it was a photo from eastern Utah.

Surely someone else noticed the sign?

Yep! Wonders of Google, Bing and flickr: Here’s a shot I found at Wanderlust Cafe:

Out on Interstate 70, the rabbits and occasional ground squirrel, lizard or coyote fall victim to speeding cars in the night. In the daylight, carrion eaters — including eagles — clean up the road. Alas, eagles have not been bred to recognize those vehicles, tiny in the distance, rush at them at 70 miles per hour. Worse, it’s a violation of federal law and regulations to kill the eagles (few are ever cited for accidents).

Local authorities put up signs warning drivers of this odd hazard: “Eagles on Highway.” Drivers are supposed to slow down, be wary, and avoid hitting the eagles.

They have to rank as the most unusual highway signs anywhere in the state. But preliminary indications are the six “Eagles on Highway” warning signs in central Utah are doing the job.

Not a single golden eagle was struck by a car during the 1989-90 winter season.In the two years previous, 30 golden eagles were killed and another 11 crippled by automobiles on a stretch of I-70 between the Colorado border and the San Rafael Swell.

“We don’t know whether it’s because the mild winter has spread the birds around more or whether it’s because the prairie dog population is down and the birds have moved elsewhere, or what,” said Miles Moretti, regional supervisor for the Division of Wildlife Resources.

“What we do know is we’ve received a lot of comments from people seeing signs and watching the birds and being aware of the problem. From a public awareness standpoint the program is a success.”

I wonder if we can track down someone in authority with numbers to show the signs are working after 25 years. And maybe I can get a copy of pharmacist de Zeeuw’s photo here — his is better, I think.

Dead Link?

We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!